The present invention relates to the technical field of reinforcement that can be applied to goods, objects, or articles which, because of their intended use, need to present a degree of resistance to wear, to damage, or indeed to deterioration due to contact with sharp or blunt instruments.
Possible applications include articles of baggage, certain panels or displays for general use, garments for sports, for gardening, for protection at work, footwear, certain inflatable pieces of equipment, and finally any goods or articles that require protection against or whose integrity needs to be maintained against the action of sharp, blunt, or abrasive objects, acting along trajectories that are rectilinear or curvilinear.
Amongst the applications mentioned, particular mention should be given to protecting the seats fitted to public transport vehicles against vandalization and laceration.
Among the requirements that need to be satisfied to reinforce goods, articles, or objects in the above applications, mention should be made of the need to be flexible in all three directions so as to make draping possible, i.e. so as to enable the reinforcement to take on the shape presented by any particular item, object, or article to be protected.
Naturally, it is also necessary to comply with the requirements of low weight per unit area so that the presence of such reinforcement does not excessively increase the weight of the article, goods, or object fitted therewith, more particularly when applied to garments, footwear, and to inflatable equipments.
In the prior art there are various proposals that have been made in an attempt to satisfy the reinforcement objective.
Mention can be made of application FR 90-09 325 which proposes putting into place a continuous web or sheet made up of helical metal springs whose turns are tangled together.
Such a proposal is unsuitable for providing a positive response to the requirements mentioned above because of the weight per unit area to which such a sheet gives rise and because of the thickness that necessarily arises when helical springs are tangled together.
Mention should also be made of U.S. Pat. No. 5,545,470 which recommends a network of metal threads and of synthetic threads disposed in an alternating and zigzag manner, while being bound together.
Although that proposal makes it possible to improve the weight per unit area of such a covering, it does not appear to be suitable for providing a positive response to the requirement for strength, given that it leaves strips of relatively low strength between the various threads, regardless of the way in which they are combined, which strips of weakness can easily be penetrated by blunt or sharp instruments.
On the basis of the knowledge that it has of the prior art, the Applicant believes that the prior art does not provide a solution capable of satisfying the multiple requirements that stem from various applications, only some of which are mentioned by way of example above.
Given this shortcoming and to the ever more pressing need to have available reinforcement that is flexible, lightweight, and strong in a wide variety of applications, the Applicant has designed a specific reinforcing web that has the particular feature of being capable of constituting a product suitable for being sold as such in the raw state, and suitable for being used in any appropriate manner by all kinds of processing industry as a function of the application in question.
The Applicant company has thus devised the subject matter of the invention so as to enable it to constitute a covering composite capable on its own of constituting a finished product suitable, not for being incorporated as such as a reinforcing web, but for use in application on a surface, as a covering, while simultaneously providing the element that it covers with the desired strength characteristics.
The Applicant has thus devised the subject matter of the invention so as to be capable of satisfying in particularly positive manner to a preferred application which it that of reinforcing the seats of public transport vehicles, which seats are well known as being subjected to frequent acts of vandalism and laceration representing a cost of renovation and refurbishment that is particularly high.
To achieve the above objects, the reinforcing web of the invention is characterized in that it is constituted by substantially parallel and spaced-apart warp threads and by pairs of reinforcing threads each shaped in the form of successive half-loops alternating in a weft direction, the successive half-loops of the reinforcing threads in each pair extending in opposite directions, and the pairs of threads being spaced apart from one another in such a manner that the half-loops of the threads corresponding to two successive pairs overlap and together define closed loops which are set by means of flexible binding stitches formed in the overlap zones between the two half-loops and the warp threads, at least some of the reinforcing threads being constituted by metal tows.
The invention also provides a strong covering composite comprising a facing layer and a reinforcing web of the above type bonded to one of the two faces of said facing layer.
Finally, by way of preferred application, the subject matter of the invention also relates to a public transport vehicle seat comprising padding or the like covered on its surface by a composite of the above type, such a composite being fitted on said padding or the like via its face which is associated with the reinforcing web.
Various other characteristics appear from the following description given with reference to the accompanying drawings which show embodiments of the invention as non-limiting examples.